INT. VERA'S BEDROOM - NIGHT

A window is open and its curtains are lisping on a breeze. Her room is a mess: clothes and books litter the floor; a towel drapes over her desk; a bra hangs from an open dresser drawer spewing unpaired socks. Bookshelves line one wall, noticeably filled with computer programming manuals and Cyrillic titles. Vera sleeps soundly in her bed, arms akimbo, an open book by her pillow, her face aglow from her reading lamp. A pile of books askew teeters on her her bedside table. She is almost snoring, with glasses slipping crookedly down her nose. The digital clock shows 2:56.

A cell phone ring ruptures the idyll. Vera flies up from her pillow. Panicked, she seeks the source of the noise, reaches towards the bedside table for her glasses, and, realizing they are on her face, sets them aright. She sees the light of her ringing, vibrating phone blinking under some papers on her desk. She tumbles up to her feet, cusses violently in Russian, grabs the phone and answers, flushed with frustration.

VERA
(Somewhere between a scream and a growl.)

What now? What now? What now? You call me three times in three nights!

COMPUTERIZED WOMAN'S VOICE
(Through cell phone, over Vera.)

Code 912. Code 912. Code 912. Please enter response code in 15 seconds. Code 912. Code 912. Code 912. Please enter response code in 12 seconds...

VERA

Aaaaaarrrgghhhhh.

Vera stabs some numbers into her phone with her index finger, cussing more in Russian and English, and hurls the phone on to the bed. She spins dervishly grabbing clothes - her jeans from the floor and an MIT sweatshirt from atop her computer monitor. She yanks them on, cussing and muttering all the while. She slips her belt, with leatherman attached, around her waist, jams her phone onto the belt, stuffs her wallet in a pocket. From a hook by the door she takes a set of keys with a pass card and hangs them around her neck. She pauses, scans the room, a predator eyeing prey.

VERA
(Saccarine sweet.)

Where are you little dearies. Come to mama. Come come come.

Vera lunges forward to reach under the bed and grab the keys. A dust bunny hitches a ride on her lanyard.

VERA

Mine!

Vera barrels out of the room.

After a moment she barrels back in, still furious, and cranes her neck around the door. Looking down, she yanks a rubber band from the doorknob. She is pulling her hair back into a ponytail as she leaves the room. She is heard thumping down the stairs.